The world’s two leading chess players played to a draw in the island this weekend.

Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana were playing in the FIDE Chess.com Grand Swiss tournament which was played at the Comis Hotel at Mount Murray.

A report from Chess.com, written by John Saunders, said: ’The game between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, which opened with a Four Knights English, fizzed and sparkled for a brief span, as Carlsen sped through the opening phase of the game while Caruana laboured for some time over his ninth move.

’He [Caruana] later said he had forgotten his prep but it didn’t matter unduly as he was able to level the game.

’Caruana opened up a line of counterattack on the queenside at the cost of a pawn and he was able to make use of this in baling out with perpetual check in just 25 moves.

’I imagine that chess fans will be wondering like me whether either of them really believes he can beat the other after their all-draws match in London 2018.’

The two men are ranked one and two in the world, with Carlsen having sat at the top of the chess world since 2011.

Carlsen had originally topped the world at the age of 19 in 2010 but briefly lost the top spot.

However, since regaining it, he has never lost it, leaving him second behind Garry Kasparov as the longest amount of time spent at number one.

He does however have the highest ever recorded Elo rating of 2882. An Elo rating is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in zero-sum games such as chess.

It is named after its creator Arpad Elo, a Hungarian-American physics professor.

In our picture above, taken over the weekend, Carlsen is playing against Wang Hao.

John Saundsers said this game ’was of minimal interest, with the Chinese GM not giving the world champion a sniff of activity as the queens came off early and the pawn structure was largely symmetrical’. The prize fund for the tournament is $432,500, with a first prize of $70,000.

The Schienberg Family sponsored the organising of the tournament, which ran from October 8 until yesterday (Monday). The opening ceremony was attended by Chief Minister Howard Quayle, who said it was ’a real honour’ for the Isle of Man to host the competition.